Delta Air Lines : AMT Day celebrates and honors talented Delta technicians (Video)

Keeping an airline running in tip-top shape - especially one as large as Delta - means having a talented team of Aviation Maintenance Technicians as well as engineers, machinists, planners and others. And on May 24, better known as AMT Day, Delta saluted the hardworking professionals who maintain more than 850 mainline jets flying thousands of flights around the world.

Last year, Delta saw 324 days without a single maintenance-driven cancellation - a record for the airline. Nearing the midpoint of 2018, the airline's TechOps teams are keeping that pace, putting Delta's operation at the top of airline operations scorecards.

'I continue to be amazed at the strength of the TechOps team and their tireless dedication to safety and operational reliability,' said Don Mitacek, Delta's Senior Vice President - Technical Operations. 'I am honored to work alongside a talented group of women and men who find opportunity in the challenges of running a global airline while taking great care to maintain everything from aircraft seats to engines, wings, the airframe and everything in between.'

While the aircraft maintenance technician of today is tasked with using a mix of brain, brawn, technology and precision - a far cry from the days of Charles E. Taylor, for which AMT Day [TMR1] was named - their dedication to keeping complex aircraft flying safely, efficiently and reliably is a hallmark of Delta and something customers have come to expect.

And more technicians are needed. Over the next two decades, the airline industry in North America will need more than 127,000 new AMTs to meet the demands of growing airline fleets and an increase in technician retirements. To meet that demand, Delta last year launched a unique partnership with a number of university, vocational and technical schools across the country to help generate a pipeline for the next generation of maintenance technicians.